


no one knew the cost

by tigerlo



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, EFA Fic Challenge 2019, F/F, Post season three, Prompt Fic, and my use of the prompt 'toothpaste' is loose at best but i'll claim it, quite angsty i'm afraid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-01 20:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17874644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlo/pseuds/tigerlo
Summary: Nicole wishes they’d run. God, she wishes they’d run.She knows how that sounds, how cowardly a sentiment that is. Nicole Haught is a warrior; she doesn’t run from a fight she knows she needs to meet head-on, but that’s how desperate she is now, and how much she’d give up to change the spun fate of things.





	no one knew the cost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkWiccan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWiccan/gifts).



> I'll be totally honest in saying this was really hard to write against a muse that did not want to cooperate but I really wanted to submit something for the EFA because you guys are absolutely awesome for doing what you do for this fandom.
> 
> Apologies are: 
> 
> One: this is an extremely loose application of the prompt but I like to think it of an artistic (read: barely there) interpretation so hopefully it makes the cut.
> 
> Two: I didn't know if I'd finish this in time for the deadline so it's only beta'd by my lowly self and no one else so all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Three: my wayhaught muse is still totally missing but hopefully this is good enough and not as terrible as I'm worried it is.
> 
> That's it! Read on if you wish. I hope it's not terrible.
> 
> x
> 
> (Also, DW, this is for you, buddy. I'm so sorry about your loss but remember how awesome this fandom family of yours is <3)

-

  


Nicole wishes they’d run. God, she wishes they’d run.

 

She knows how that sounds, how cowardly a sentiment that is. Nicole Haught is a warrior; she doesn’t run from a fight she knows she needs to meet head-on, but that’s how desperate she is now, and how much she’d give up to change the spun fate of things.

 

She wishes that she’d begged Waverly to go at the first sign of this deadly-looming trouble, instead of just thinking it for months. She wishes she had begged Waverly to let them run to Alice and Gus, to get as far away from this place as possible, but she didn’t, she didn’t, and now Waverly is gone and all she has is an empty bed and a quiet house and a heart that feels like she’s put it through a shredder.

 

They’ve been too happy, these last few months. She should have known. She should have known something was going to crash down around them and shatter everything beyond the point of repair because now it has. First, they lose Dolls, and then they lose Doc in a different way, and now Waverly’s stuck on the other side of something Nicole can’t reason with or break or shoot or punch through.

 

They’ve had so many signs that something worse was coming when Nicole takes the time to look back in it, but they were stubborn and stupid enough to think they could beat whatever big bad it was pushing against them. They couldn’t though, maybe they _can’t_ , and now all Nicole has is a whole wardrobe full of clothes that haven’t been worn in weeks, and the scent of a toothpaste in the morning that makes her want to sob because it taunts her with the memory of half-asleep Waverly in the dawn, kissing her softly with minted breath to send her on her way to the station.

 

She could have run, _they_ could have run, they could have had everything away from here; happiness, a life, life, period, and now she has this: the deepest regret she’s ever suffered because Waverly is gone, she’s gone, all because they didn’t run.

  


-

  


It’s hard to breathe without Waverly around. It’s hard to do anything at all, actually.

 

It’s hard to get out of a bed she knows will be as empty as it is now when she crawls into it later. It’s hard to get dressed in the morning without Waverly peering up at her through a sleepy haze as she watches Nicole carefully button up her uniform. It’s hard to remember to make one cup of coffee and not two because she’s gone, she’s just gone, and Nicole feels the lack of her every single time she exhales.

 

She knows the others watch her; for a wavering step in case they need to catch her, for a look requesting help that she refuses to give, for signs of a catastrophic crack.

 

She knows how deep that fracture line runs, she knows how close to her heart it is, she knows how finely it comes up along a nerve but she won’t say anything because the strong front is an armour in itself, and if she admits to anyone else how broken she is, she’ll have to admit it to herself, and she knows she won’t be able to pick herself up from the dirt after that.

 

Nedley hovers, bless him. He stays closer to Nicole than anyone else does. He’s never far from her right hand after Waverly disappears, even though he’s supposed to be anywhere but here. He comes by the homestead in the morning almost every day well before Wynonna shows any sign of rising, bringing her a fresh cup of coffee and to sit with her in the crisp morning air

 

“We’ll get her back,” Nedley says to her almost every day as he leans against the creaking wood that Nicole’s been meaning to repair for weeks, replacing the mug of cold untouched coffee in her hand with a steaming takeaway cup.

 

She won’t fix the porch, she knows she won’t, because Waverly sat here on the creaking wood and proposed something Nicole still clings to, a future she refuses to acknowledge is lost, and fixing that creak might make the memory weaker.

 

His presence is comforting, but it’s a band-aid on an open wound at the end of the day and nothing more. He knows he can’t fix this but he does what he can and what she needs, not so much active reassurance, but silent solidarity.

 

She wakes before dawn most days, her whole body aching with the lack of warmth beside her. She rolls out of bed before her brain has too much of an opportunity to torment her with the knowledge, throws her training gear on and starts sprinting as soon as she sets foot outside of the house.

 

It feels good for as long as she’s moving, cathartic as her lungs strain and her heart thumps messily in her chest but the walls start closing in as soon as she stops, the second she curls over her knees and bites her nails into the muscles of her thighs. It’s a band-aid for the pain just like Nedley is, but it’s a break in the torment and the guilt long enough for her to breathe and keep her head in the fight. _Just_ long enough for her to stop the crack reaching her heart.

 

-

  


She has a good deal of time to think, without Waverly around. Too much time. Far too much time.

 

Her mind wanders dangerously. Torturously. It replays old memories and new memories and days that have just been the second she closes her eyes, trying to make her forget that Waverly’s not just around the corner fetching a blanket for them to hide under or making a cup of cocoa in the kitchen.

 

Nicole reprimands herself constantly, trying to turn the narrative off but her conscious and her subconscious aren’t having any of it.

 

_Waverly is gone,_ it tells her _. She’s gone. Like your parents. Like Dolls. And she’s never coming back_.

 

-

  


They’re both quiet when they finally make it home the night after they destroy the coven but the tension in Waverly's grip on her hand is loud.

 

Nicole can still taste the sickly sweet syrupy taste in the back of her throat, one of the last lingering traces of the vampire's glamour. It’s not a bad taste either, that’s the most frightening thing. It’s pleasant to the point of addictive, cloying and reassuringly heavy all at the same time.

 

She suspects there’s something wrong with Waverly the whole drive home but she _knows_ the second they walk into the house and Waverly hesitates for a fraction of a second on the threshold, like walking over it will bring something still clinging to them, into the house.

 

“It’s okay, baby,” Nicole says gently but firmly, stepping one foot over but pausing while she waits for Waverly. “It’s just us, okay? Nothing else.”

 

“We don’t know that,” Waverly replies with an almost hurtful dismissal, her eyes turning up to Nicole’s in a silent apology before she exhales deeply and takes the step herself.

 

Nicole wants to pull the harshness out and exorcise it before they ready themselves for bed but Waverly’s already swaying on her feet, and Nicole knows she won’t be able to stand as straight as she is now for long either, so she follows Waverly up the stairs dutifully, casting a quick look over her shoulder at the top to check the bolt is still solid across the front door.

 

She’s patient as they strip and shower and wash the taint from their skin, she holds the silence until Waverly crawls into bed with a blank look in her eyes that scares Nicole too much to hold it any longer.

 

“Wave?” Nicole’s voice is soft as she climbs in too, careful not to touch Waverly just yet. “Do you… do you want to talk about anything?”

 

“I think I should be asking you the same question,” Waverly says with an exhausted half-laugh. “You were under longer than I was.”

 

“I’m not worried about me,” Nicole replies a little more firmly, opening her arms for Waverly to settle against her chest as she leans against the headboard. “I’m worried about you. Tell me what’s goin’ on in that head of yours,” she asks gently, “please?”

 

“I’m fine,” Waverly says weakly but moving for the security of Nicole’s body as soon as she offers it, her ear resting over Nicole’s heartbeat as Nicole’s arms wrap around her shoulders.

 

“Baby,” Nicole admonishes softly, her lips warm on the crown of Waverly’s head. “We promised, remember? No more secrets. If you _can’t_ , then that’s fine, but I-“

 

She can feel Waverly’s hesitation in answering and she understands it completely too, because it’s healing to share a worry or fear as deep as this, but it’s enormously confronting too. It lets the fear loose in the world, and she knows full-well how frightening that is.

 

“It felt like before,” Waverly admits quietly after a long silence, speaking directly to the warmth of Nicole’s heart. “Tonight, not having control, sitting like a backseat passenger, it felt like…”

 

“Mictian,” Nicole finishes, her breath coming out in a rush. “It felt like him, god, Wave, I’m so sorry.”

 

“It’s okay,” Waverly sniffs, wiping her nose against her wrist quickly before settling her palm over Nicole’s stomach again. “I’m okay, it was just… I never wanted to feel like that again, and for a moment I was scared I’d be trapped like that for good because you were too, and normally you’re the one who saves me, but-“

 

It makes Nicole feel sick because Waverly’s right. She threw it eventually, but it hadn’t been easy, their hold had been strong, frighteningly strong, and if she hadn’t been able to they might all be-

 

“I’ll always save you, Wave,” Nicole says fiercely instead of letting the fear consume her, sliding her forefinger underneath Waverly’s chin and tipping her head back so she can kiss her firmly. It helps with the tension, Nicole can feel it, second by second, it makes them both feel better. Feel safer. She pulls Waverly tight against her when they part, pushing the air from the both of them completely. “I promise, I’ll always save you.”

  


-

  


Wynonna doesn’t talk for days after Dolls dies. It’s like losing Alice all over again, the aching absence of him, and it’s so bad that both Nicole and Waverly are scared she won’t come back from this.

 

Nicole knows Wynonna and Dolls have their tangled history and she knows there’s a complication with Doc there too, but she knows that Wynonna loved him and she _trusted_ him, and she knows that’s not a common thing.

 

“I’m worried,” Waverly says to Nicole who’s shrugging off belt and jacket as Waverly leans against the bedroom door frame, brushing her teeth. She’s holding the brush handle still as it rests in the curve of her cheek and her eyes are glassy for a second before she turns back to the bathroom and reappears, licking toothpaste from her bottom lip.

 

She looks exhausted as she walks over to the bed, collapsing down on the edge of it, curling her hands into the blankets and staring up to Nicole pleadingly.

 

“I know,” Nicole replies with a slow carefulness, walking over to the bed to scoop Waverly’s legs up and in, underneath the blanket. “I know you are, baby. I am too.”

 

“What can we do?” Waverly asks, curling around Nicole’s lower half when there’s room for her to sit on the edge of the bed, still fully dressed.

 

“I don’t know that there’s a whole lot we can do,” Nicole answers, blowing a breath out between her teeth. “Just be there for her, I think. When she’s ready to grieve in her way, we can help with.”

 

“I miss him too,” Waverly says as she nuzzles into Nicole’s waist, sliding her arms around Nicole’s middle and resting her chin somewhere by Nicole’s hip.

 

“So do I,” Nicole nods, swallowing the thickness that threatens to squeeze its hands around her throat.

 

“I feel like I can’t-” Waverly starts before she falters, hiding her face in the covers, and Nicole thinks she can feel fresh tears through her clothes, “like,” Waverly sniffles, “like I can’t grieve because that’s hers to do.”

 

It makes Nicole’s heart twist harshly in her chest because she knows exactly what Waverly’s talking about. Wynonna is beyond distraught, stony in her silent processing - or not - of his death, to the point where Nicole feels like her own grief is encroaching on Wynonna’s right to. She knew him better than anyone after all. She knew where his fight came from, or at least Nicole thinks she did, and the sad fact is that he almost doesn’t feel like theirs to grieve.

 

“Grief in death isn’t ever only one person’s to have, baby,” Nicole says softly. She believes it to be true, she does, even though she doesn’t completely feel the equality of it here and now. “You’re allowed to grieve, openly. We all are. It’s the only way-” she pauses to cough gently over the tension in her chest, “it’s the only way we’ll ever move on.”

 

“Is it gonna get worse?” Waverly asks her quietly, not looking up to meet her eye as she does so.

 

“God, I hope not,” Nicole answers, her voice shaky. “I really do.”

 

“You won’t leave, will you?” Waverly asks after a pause. “You’ll stay here with us?” There’s something different in her voice to before. A more strained kind of desperation.

 

“Leave?” Nicole questions, the suggestion knocking the wind from her. She twists herself enough to look down at Waverly properly, to draw her gaze from the faint floral pattern on their sheets. “Baby, why would-”

 

Waverly looks at her incredulously, like she can’t understand how Nicole doesn’t understand without her needing to say anything. “Because,” Waverly says with a quivering bottom lip, “the people we love kinda tend to have a habit of-”

 

“Waverly Earp,” Nicole interrupts her promptly, kissing the fear off her lips, coming away with the faint mint taste that is overwhelmingly _Waverly_ . “I am not going anywhere, alright,” Nicole says firmly, holding Waverly’s eye as she encourages Waverly up gently into a seated position, even if she wants to add _but I want us to go together, somewhere where we’ll both be safe, and your sister and Jeremy too_. But she doesn’t. “I’m staying,” she says instead, as the dread fills her, like something in the air knows that’s the wrong decision to make and the consequences they’ll all face if she does.

 

“Promise?” Waverly asks as a tear trips it’s barrier and rolls down her cheek.

 

“I promise,” Nicole affirms, finding Waverly’s hand in her own, intertwining their fingers and squeezing tightly. She presses an even softer kiss to her cheek, catching the next tear. “Waverly, I promise.”

 

She nods as she takes in Nicole’s words, moving to fold herself into Nicole’s chest as her arms wrap around Waverly’s shoulders, holding her away from the cold that feels like it’s closing in all around them.

 

Nicole feels a shift in the body beneath hers as the hiccuped tears slow, Waverly’s hands clutching more desperately around her waist. “Come to bed,” Waverly says, a desperate look flashing suddenly in her eye as she looks up for Nicole as if seeking proof that this is still real. Her hands find the buttons on Nicole’s shirt and they start moving.

 

Intimacy like this in grief is common, Nicole knows that well, in theory and execution, and while there’s part of her that wants to gently take Waverly’s hands because they should be mourning or crying or holding a vigil instead of _this_ , she feels her skin warm and she realises with a dangerous ache in her belly, just how much she needs this too.

 

“Come to bed,” Waverly says again, pushing up on her knees to find the tenderness of Nicole’s neck, kissing messily as her fingers work to open her shirt. “Please, Nicole.”

 

“Baby,” Nicole replies softly, catching Waverly under the chin and tilting her head up, kissing her deeply, inhaling peppermint before she shifts them enough to push Waverly onto her back and settle between her thighs. “I’m already here.”

  


-

  


“What do you think happens after we die?” Waverly asks after they put Dolls into the ground, turning to Nicole as she cranks the heater in the squad car, clumsy over the controls with her gloves still on.

 

Nicole remembers pondering the same thing as a child. _Where do people go? Would she go to the same place, and the same time? Will she be alone? Would she be safe? Would she know herself? Would she be scared?_

 

“I don’t know,” Nicole says honestly, reaching for Waverly across the console of the car. She glances over the small space between them, catching the ashen look on Waverly’s face as she stares fixedly out the front of the vehicle through the windscreen. “I don’t know, baby,” she says in a softer tone, lacing their fingers together, “but I do know that wherever it is, or whatever happens, people like Dolls, and Shorty, they get to go to a good place.”

 

“Where do you think we’ll go?” Waverly asks, suddenly looking young, and scared, and like the world has dropped far too much weight on her shoulders than her tally of years should ever have had to learn to manage.  

 

“Somewhere good, Wave,” Nicole says with a surety she doesn’t feel but that she knows Waverly needs to hear. “Somewhere real good, I promise.”

 

“What if it’s not though?” Waverly asks. “What if I go somewhere bad because of who I am, and you go somewhere good?”

 

“Well, then,” Nicole says with a pragmatic sigh, smiling over her fear, desperate to reassure and chase back Waverly’s ghosts even as her own linger. Desperate to run. _Desperate_ for it. “I’ll just have to come get you, won’t I?”

 

 

-

 

She’d do anything to get Waverly back unharmed.

 

She won’t tell Wynonna that, although she thinks she already knows. She’d trade almost any soul in this whole godforsaken town for Waverly’s if it meant getting her back in one piece, even Wynonna’s. Even her own.

 

She wonders whether Wynonna would go to a similar length, whether she’d sacrifice Nicole if it meant bringing Waverly back. Nicole’s not a fool, she knows that giving up Wynonna’s life would probably damage their relationship irreparably, but she doesn’t care about herself anymore, the only thing she cares about is bringing Waverly home.

 

Nicole’s sure that Wynonna has thought about it, about giving herself up for Waverly, about giving Nicole up too, but she thinks that’s where they differ. She doesn’t think Wynonna would cross that line and trade Nicole’s life for Waverly freedom. She thinks Wynonna’s well aware of the pain she’s already caused Waverly over the span of her tragically short life, and she knows that sacrificing Waverly’s love would cross that, would destroy it so thoroughly they’d never have a hope of repairing it.

 

And she gets it, she does, but Nicole’s lost almost everyone else in her life and she’s loathe to lose another, but she knows that Waverly’s life is worth more than theirs; hers and Wynonna. She knows there’s some clue to Waverly’s parentage that will be the true end to the Earp Curse. She knows that this game they’ve been playing for years, the race to hunt the bad guys down before the Heir’s light is snuffed out is only part of the torture, she’s always known that was never going to be the answer even if she’s never told Waverly or Wynonna before. It’s too exquisite a punishment to be the end to it too.

 

_No_ , Nicole thinks as she huddles closer around the fire at the foot of the staircase for the thirtieth night in a row. _That’s not the way to end this. It’s not. But Waverly is._

 

Waverly’s special, Nicole has known that since the day she walked into Shorty’s and set eyes on her. Champ had known it too, in his own way, he’d been drawn to Waverly in a similar sense to Nicole, that’s why he’d stayed with her - likely infidelity aside. He’d known she was special too. He’d seen the light that Nicole had seen, and Doc, and Jolene, and Mitcian; the light that good and grey and black alike are drawn to like some kind of siren call.

 

She’ll do anything to get that light back. To bring it to this side of the veil, where it belongs. She’ll give her own to make it so.

 

They’re in tatters though, their team, their family. Dolls is gone and Wynonna is broken and Doc is all but lost to them completely and Nicole has no idea where to begin anymore. She doesn’t know how they’re going to saddle up and come to Waverly’s rescue when they can barely stand on their own feet.

 

She’ll go to the ends of the earth to save Waverly’s life, but she’s still only one person, and the weight of the world is heavy on her shoulders without anyone else to take a corner of the load.

 

Nicole knows that Wynonna’s trying, she is, but she’s so lost in a tailspin of her own grief, because she’s lost so much too, and Nicole doesn’t blame her for pulling back as she tries to find her own way forward.

 

The freezing wind whips through her makeshift camp, sending a chill down to her bones. She’s not stupid enough to think she isn’t risking exposure out here every night, but it’s easy to be careless and reckless when she can justify it against the cause in her head.

 

There’s a small chance, she tells herself, that Waverly might just walk through that veil in the same clothes she walked up them in, so what kind of girlfriend - no, _fiancée_ \- would she be if she weren’t waiting for her.

 

Some nights Wynonna comes out and tries to drag Nicole back to the homestead but Nicole doesn’t ever go. Occasionally Wynonna stays with her, will pull a bottle of Doc’s good whiskey out of a satchel and drink into the night until she falls asleep under Nicole’s silent eye, and sometimes she just leaves. Nicole knows that when she does, she never goes home because Wynonna can’t stand the emptiness of the homestead without Waverly in it as much as she can’t. It’s deafening, the silence of the house without Waverly’s warmth, without her light.

 

“What if she doesn’t come back?” Wynonna asks her one night, the question she’s taken all this time to ask.

 

“She will,” Nicole grits out between clenched teeth, whether due to the cold or the fact that she’s furious Wynonna would even ask, she isn’t sure. “She has to,” Nicole says firmly. “We’ll bring her back, Wynonna. We have to.”

 

She’s thankful that Wynonna doesn’t ask the cynical, _and how the hell are we going to do that,_ that’s resting on the tip of her tongue, because Nicole’s not sure how she’d hold herself back from that argument. Jeremy has been working around the clock with Nedley’s help, and Chrissy’s too, to their surprise, and Nicole’s when she can sit down long enough but it’s still not enough. Or it hasn’t been yet.

 

_Yet,_ Nicole thinks gritting her teeth _. Yet. Yet. It hasn’t been yet. But it will. It has to be_.

 

“I really want you to be right, Haught,” Wynonna says eventually, taking a rough swig of her drink and wincing. She looks up towards the staircase that Nicole refuses to acknowledge, her eyes hard, like the action and her furious determination can will her sister to appear at the bottom of it. “Christ, I hope you’re right.”

  


_end_.

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://tigerlo.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/tigerlo_) etc, etc.
> 
> x


End file.
